Starting again at my beginnings

The air was a little crisp still. A light snow dusting on the mountains to the east gave contrast to the blue sky and the dark brown mountain. My run had began with me running toward the mountains for almost 3 miles at which point I was as close, both in distance and spirit, to the mountain as I was going to be this day. The light was different from the near the top of the lower peaks, and then different again over the top of the highest mountain peaks. The white light between the blue and the valley below seemed to make the view almost unreal. The blue sky above framed the entire picture. It seemed as though I could smell the ground and the sky and all feeling left me and the in some ways nothing else existed. The most encompassing "high". Self was gone. No footprints. Nothing but light. Nothing in me but everything to hold on too.

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It was 8 miles today. 8 miles of distance run. It was so much more than a "unforgiving minute" and for it "the Earth was mine and everything in it"....................

*

If

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

But make allowance for their doubting too,

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,

If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools
If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much,

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
--Rudyard Kipling